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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #85,
4/28/2007

Socialization

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

[Subject to active editing
for the next day or two.]

Socialization is the process by which children with
unlimited potential are turned into dull, restricted,
self-destructive adults. The process is overwhelmingly
tragic — a beating into submission of most of the joy
and creativity of childhood. What you usually have left
after socialization is a shell of a person, locked in prison
of addiction and economic servitude and hardly achieving
anywhere near his full potential.

When you take the subway or walk the average streets of any
city, it is hard to imagine that every adult you pass was an
adorable little baby once, just as bright, funny and full of
life as any other. The thing that turned them into a
homeless alcoholic, a drug-addicted prostitute or a casino
executive is socialization. They could have been somebody.
They had the potential to do great things, but a defective
upbringing zapped most of it.

It is not a matter of a few childhoods being tragic. Nearly
all of them are. There are few adults who emerge from
socialization with their joy, creativity, humor and
conscience still intact. The best that most of us can hope
for is to try to relearn childhood after it has nearly been
beaten out of us.

The world is a cruel and uncompromising place. When we first
emerge from the womb, we are protected from most of it. By
the time we reach adulthood, we have to deal with it's
stupidity head-on. The real world doesn't play with us and
love us unconditionally they way our parents did. The real
world doesn't appreciate us for ourselves. Instead the
world expects us to fill a shallow role to serve the
perceived needs of somebody else.

The transition from being the center of the universe to only
a peripheral player is extremely difficult. Some people
won't accept it. They throw themselves against the
restrictions of society and become criminals. Others accept
their fate too willingly and blindly believe that society
knows what is good for them. Those people become drones.

There are low-level drones and high-level drones. Low-level
drones are working minimum wage jobs and trying desperately
to support the family that fell upon them. High-level
drones are driving SUVs and completely ignoring the
low-level drones who support them. The fact that you have
money and means doesn't mean that your life is meaningful or
that you are achieving your potential.

Nearly every adult is addicted. If they aren't addicted to
drugs or alcohol, then it's video entertainment, home
decorating or some repetitive and all-consuming hobby that
benefits no one. For those adults who have resources,
narcissism is the main disorder. There is little true joy
in their lives; mostly, they are concerned with product
acquisition.

The magic of childhood lies in its humor, its creativity,
its joyous exploration and its impassioned pursuit of
ideals. Nearly all of this is lost by adulthood. Adulthood
is characterized by repetition, a jealous protection of ones
assets and a paranoid fear of anything that might mess up
ones fragile delusions. Children joyfully roam the
countryside and aren't afraid to storm whatever castles they
encounter. Adults live in those castles and hardly ever
leave.

What the real world expects of you is some form of
prostitution. As an adult, you are expected to provide a
useless product or service to some ugly guy driving an SUV.
You are no longer appreciated for being who you are; you are
only appreciated for your tits, which really aren't you at
all. To get rewarded in our society, you are expected to
sell something to others according to their own sick delusional
system.

Adolescence is the transitional period between protected
childhood and unprotected adulthood. The brain itself
changes during this period, as lifelong patterns are frozen
into place. The adult who emerges is no longer compliant and
infinitely flexible. His personality is essentially fixed.
He can certainly learn things, post-puberty, but his basic
emotional attitude toward the world is unlikely to change.
Wounds that happen during adolescence will haunt the adult
forever.

Adolescence is probably the most critical and difficult
period for parenting. The child's language and physical
prowess are essentially that of an adult, but his emotions
are a mess. If ever a child needed compassionate guidance,
this is the time.

Unfortunately, in the real world, that guidance is rarely
present. At best, the child is left to raise himself. At
worse, he is seen as a threat or a sexual object and is
beaten down by the adults around him. Anyone would help a
five-year-old in need; not many would help a 14-year-old, in
part because he is beginning to look threatening, insists on
thinking for himself and doesn't respond well to commands.

Socialization is such a brutal process partly because the
pool of talent in the adult world is so weak to begin with.
It doesn't take much intelligence to produce a baby, change
its diapers and play with it for a few years. The task of
managing adolescents is way beyond the ability of most
parents. By this point, frankly, most parents have lost
control. Their interventions tend to be ineffective and
counterproductive, because they had no effective role models
themselves when they were that age.

If socialization is a tragedy in most cases, at least there
is some freedom in knowing this. Most innocent babies are
going to be screwed up by the time they reach adulthood.
There is no child welfare agency that can change this; it is
simply a fact of our world.

There may be a few children, however, who we can save, who
we can turn into something approaching the ideal citizen.
We should be thankful for these rare opportunities, rather
than dwelling on all the children who we can't save.

—G.C.

Links

Reader Comments

“Good job, but you lost me at "At best, the child is left to raise himself"”
—Joe in NY 4/29/07 (rating=3)

“I take umbrage to "There may be a few children, however, who we can save, who we can turn into something approaching the ideal citizen. We should be thankful for these rare opportunities, rather than dwelling on all the children who we can't save. " That is so entirely elitist, I wonder who wrote it! As long as there is life, there is opportunity! If anything, adolescence is the time to break out of the rules of socialization. It is this sort of fatalism that keeps healthy adults from fostering, befriending and just plain caring for youngsters when they most need it! Maybe you need to get outta Vegas and see a wider cross-sampling of teens! To give up hope on their ability to break out of our socialization "rules" is so over the top cynical, I'm seeing red! When you say "rather than dwelling on ... children we can't save.", sounds like you mean "abandon" - thank God you're not a teacher!”
— 4/30/07 (rating=0)

“It started out well then came off as sort of rushed towards the end. I still enjoy your critiques on civilization.”
—Some guy in Texas 4/30/07 (rating=2)